Lake Mary Prices - They're A Gas

County Lines

February 3, 2000|By Jim Toner of The Sentinel Staff

Signs still abound that Lake Mary is booming. Just look at the signs at Interstate 4 and Lake Mary Boulevard gas stations. They let you know right off that you are not driving through some chintzy burg. If you are looking for cheap gas, buddy, keep right on truckin'.

Some months back a column item suggested that gas-station operators in Lake Mary misinterpreted a Sentinel story about high-paying, high-tech jobs there as meaning everyone in town was filthy rich.

As far as high prices went, Lake Mary stations left their counterparts in their exhaust, so to speak.

Nothing has changed, according to an informal survey this week. One station at that intersection, Citgo, charges $1.439 for a gallon of regular unleaded. Yikes, where's my bicycle pump? Exxon charges $1.429. The others are a fume behind at $1.419. You don't even pay that much at the intersection of Interstate 75 and nowhere, miles from Lake City.

Now just down the road at State Road 434, prices are much more reasonable. As you know that intersection is in an industrious working class area near the Sentinel's Altamonte Springs office. At least two stations at that intersection were selling regular unleaded for $1.299, a fitting reward for the hard-working people nearby.

The closest anyone else on I-4 in Seminole County came to meeting Lake Mary standards was $1.379, and that was only one station. Most hovered in the $1.319 to $1.349 range. During the three-day survey, prices at several stations even went up a penny or two. Best bet is to gas up now and put your car up on blocks.

Lunching with the downtown gourmets. A reader skeptically greeted word that a proposal to fashion a downtown Casselberry included a pedestrian overpass near City Hall.

John C. Burleigh wondered: Could lunch have anything to do with this?

The proposed overpass would carry people on foot or bicycle across busy U.S. Highway 17-92 somewhere in the area of Triplet Lake Drive. Walking across U.S. 17-92 there is only for those who are strong of heart and quick of foot besides not having much sense.

Burleigh was reacting to a recent column looking at Casselberry's plans to create a downtown district from State Road 436 north to Seminola Boulevard (Dog Track Road). The overpass idea caught his eye because he says a Casselberry ``insider'' told him about three years ago the city might do such a thing.

The reason? So that city employees could get to lunch across the street at Steak 'N Shake or Taco Bell without dodging traffic. It's tough dodging traffic while burdened with tacos or cheeseburgers, not to mention the fries.

Burleigh said his insider told him the city was ``hoping that an acceptable reason could be established, justifying the expense. Now, obviously, they have enlisted your [meaning my) help in promoting the idea.''

I called Dick Wells, the city's community development director, to see whether Casselberry was using me as a pawn.

Not so, promised Wells. He said he was unaware of any talk about building the pedestrian overpass as a quick route to Taco Bell or Steak 'N Shake.

If a Casselberry core ever becomes a reality, Wells said, you have to be able to cross U.S. 17-92 either on foot or by bike so that people can move around freely.

Besides, he said, the overpass would provide a visual focal point, like Sanford's waterfront, where none exists now.

Wells said the overpass would have architectural enhancements so that it ``doesn't look like a chain-link fence in the sky.'' He sees a facade that would reflect the graceful lines of a suspension bridge.

No doubt Burleigh would be suspicious of this. He points to the pedestrian/bike overpass at U.S. 17-92 and Maitland Boulevard. You know the one near the lavish Maitland Monument welcoming you to town. The nice greeting is there just to soften you up before they write you a traffic ticket.

Burleigh, who said he commutes on the road every day, claims he has seen only two people crossing the ``enormous length'' of that ``financial monstrosity.'' His two-person estimate seems conservative.